Monday, March 26, 2007

Money!!!! Money!!! Money!!!

Money cannot buy happiness.... it also can't buy gold medals and world championships. This is evident with the dismal performance of the cricket team. I hate to make another reference to the "men in blue" but it is a great lesson for all of us in the sporting world to see that it takes a lot more than funds to achieve success.
There is obviously no doubt that money is an important component to creating champions but it is not the be all and end all. The formula for success is a tricky composition of desire, hard work, talent, planning, competitiveness and money. The problem with us in India is that there has been a dearth of funds. Not that the funds don't exist... they are just flittered away in non productive ways. Planning is one of the most important factors to achieving success but if you talk to most coaches and sports admin officials they don't really have a plan.... and if they do it is not a very good one.
In a lot of cases the coaches who are doing it with the best of intentions, spend so much time trying to raise money for their athletes that they forget to develop a hunger, passion and desire in their wards.
There is no shortage of funds in India what we really need is people who can come in and formulate a plan to create champions. There has to be some accountability to be able to produce results and unfortunately right now we not only have a bunch of over paid, under achieving athletes but also officials.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Manisha,

Back again.........
What dearth of Money from Government of India or any other organisation are you talking about? Have you had a look at the MONEY spent by the Ministry of Sports for the sportsmen in the past few years. Take a look http://yas.nic.in/yasroot/beneficiaries/federations.htm and then some federations have now started putting the expenditure details on their websites. A case of yachting Association of India makes interesting reading for one. Look at the grants vis a vis the results..........and the names of the sportsmen.
It is not that the Govt does not support the sportsmen, but the sportsmen do not have the fire, the coaches are choosen by the system due to their connections and not what the sportsman wants, the coaches are thrust upon the sports persons. How many coaches are present for training their wards daily in India but when it comes to going abroad all of them are in the forefront..........

Manisha Malhotra said...

hey anonymous,
The point i am trying to make is not that there is no money trickling down to the development of sport. The funds are not utilized in a way which will in teh future create high level of competitors and of course the coaches are not of any standard. So all in all i agree to all you had to say... other than the athletes lacking fire...
i can see that you seem to think that all the problems are the fault of athletes but the truth is athletes need to be groomed. They need to be nurtured and taught not to settle for anything else other than the best... here the coaches teach our athletes just to be satisfied by winning a nationals, or making the indian squad but no one teaches them to aspire for a gold medal because everyone thinks its impossible... that is also one of the big problems with a lot of my athletes and it is quite a challenge to change the mindset.

Anonymous said...

Hi Manisha,

Thanks for the prompt response. IT IS NOT DARK ALL THE WAY......... THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL..... but what we need is a change of mindset. Heard the Sports Minister yesterday on his proposals for the new sports policy....... I am impressed with the thought process and do hope it makes the desired change.

As regards, lighting the fire amongst your wards and lack of coaches (which stems from their shortsighted approach to cash awards and rewards), there are solutions, only if they can be understood and implemented in the right spirit. We do have many people with adequate fire and the will to achieve the highest that is there to achieve, but the selection process and the politics and policies that govern them sometimes douse the fire much before it is fully lit.

Once agin I apologise for remaining anonymous, but someday we shall meet and interact and maybe understand why we do things the way we do them now.........